TV Aerial Wiring

[Sheaf]

Hi, I'm hoping somebody may have some knowledge of this, or be able to point me in the right direction to find out... there's lots of info out there but a lot of what I've read so far seems to make a lot of assumptions or miss a few steps.

Basically, I live in a 3 bed semi, with a large aerial in the loft. I'm assuming it's a decent one as it's fairly decent condition and massive (in fact, i did consider replacing it with a smaller one to aid my storage needs).

The aerial has one output, which makes its way to a nice flush wall mounted socket in my living room.


Unfortunately that socket isn't where I presently have my TV.

The previous owners also put a cable out the living room wall and back in the bedroom (I'm not a fan of wiring pinned to the outside of the house, nor of cables stuck through walls).

What I want it to put a socket on the wall in the living room where my TV lives, put one in the bedroom and also put one in the dining room.
TBH, I'd like to set myself up if possible to have additional sockets in other rooms..

Now, how do I go about this without buggering up the signal.

Obviously if I keep daisy chaining the cables it's going to result in a drop of signal at the end of the line, possibly degrading it in the living room.

Should I be looking at a second aerial or at amps?

Can the amp go downstairs of does it need to be as close the the aerial so possible?

My thinking is an ideal solution would be cable the aerial to the under stairs cupboard, fit a huge multi output amplifier and then go from there to each room individually, but until I decorate I'm not going to have access....


So how many times can I split it before I get loss of signal?

[skintoss]

If it was me (and this is my plan eventually) I would fit a multi output signal booster in the loft so that the aerial goes straight into its input and then route each output from the signal booster to each room you want a TV in. they're only small cables and can be run in the corners of rooms and either in channelling or just painted to blend in.

[Punx0r]

Each coax splitter apparently reduces the signal strength to less than half on each channel. One 2-way splitter may be alright if the signal is strong, but I wouldn't split it any further. I'd go with an amp, as suggested, and put it wherever is convenient. Coax is fine with long runs so I don't think it matters much which end of the line you put the amp.

[pengy_666]

I highly rate the philex slx range,

Had one in my house, took one signal, split it to 8 and fm in each room it was fitted.

[Sneekyparrot]

As above have said.
Get asked to do this loads of times when we doing extensions / refurbs.

For a basic free to
Air system I run a booster / amp in the loft by the ariel. Mains powered so will need a socket (pls don't wire
It from the lights)
Decent satellite spec coax cable to each point. Take care making ends up / faceplates. I use sat stuff and screw adaptor on it for ariel inputs.

Invest in a signal strength box to check Ariel location, just cause its a big one don't make it good [emoji13][emoji13]

Can get more fruity if u wanna run sky around / cable or hd but that will give u a good freeview setup

P.

[E_T_V]

As above fit a mast amplifier/splitter. This can also be powered by an aerial cable in many cases so no need to run a seprate power to the loft (if there isn't one handy).

I did the same as the signal was carp when I moved in.

Fit mast amp with 4 outlets to replace the one cable split into 4 (on my roof rather than loft). Power the mast amp via the aerial cable from the downstairs TV and bingo now each room has a working TV signal.

[Glevum]

CPC have a good range of inexpensive TV signal amplifiers.

http://cpc.farnell.com/

Maplin have a good range as well. They are more expensive, but will be more helpful than CPC

If you need advice on what to buy I would go to Maplin and talk to them.

[Sheaf]

Well I started the job, I've basically just run a coax cable to every room and at the moment I'm just using a 4 way splitter in the loft. TBH, I seem to get an adequate signal!

I can easily replace the splitter with a multiway amp, I've been looking at the labgear stuff like this - http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00I ... d_i=468294

I can then run the sat dish signal to the loft too and combine the signals, which can then be split in the room if required.

I'm taking the opportunity of getting the modular sockets too and running cat5e to every room too, so they're both in one socket. Not needed for mobile devices but means I can just plug in a cable and get gigabit connection to my NAS and media server I'm building.

I used PF100 cable too, which from what I can see is superior to RG6.

[Sheaf]

As an update, been redecorating my lounge recently and also managed to get free sky TV....

So the whole thing got way more complicated.

I've ended up -

Running an additional 2 cables (so 3 in total) to the lounge from the loft.
Sat cable and Virgin cables removed from the lounge as it was messy and horrible.

Single coax to each other room.

In the lounge all signals split under the floor and go to the other corner where I may want a TV in the future.

2 Cables go into a diplexer, splitting out to TV,Radio and 2 sat sockets.

I'm putting a diplexer in the loft to combine freeview signals onto one of the sat cables and getting the dish wired to the loft so it can be fed down. This can be done as they're different frequencies.

3rd cable returns the TV signal from the living room to the loft, enabling the coax out of the sky box to be used on any other TV in the house, via the original splitter.

Hopefully, I will be ok without any amps. Worst case, Labgear do a distribution amp which basically takes all the signals in the loft and amps them. I'm trying to avoid it though as it's 55W and I don't really want it running 24/7.

I thought i had it all sorted until sky said I could have free TV and I realised I needed a return cable! Put that in today before the carpet goes down....

Oh, I'm removing the horrible cabling on the outside of the house which somebody ran to the bedroom... I hate visible cabling!

[pengy_666]

I'm quite sure that you can't split sky signal with sky+

It will work but you have to change settings to single feed which means you can't watch another channel and record at same time and so on...

[Sheaf]

You're correct... You need two feeds, hence my multiple sat cable
You can however run sky and free view down one, combined, the feed for sky+ down a second.

Then use a 3rd cable for the return free view signal with the analogue output of the sky box.

Basically, use one of these....


Takes 2 sat cables and splits the first one out to sat, TV and radio. The second one just passes through.

Technically from what I can tell you could have a second duplexer and run the return signal up the sat 2 feed in the opposite direction but I decided to do it with a separate cable so save any external hardware in the living room.

I also got one of these for my surround sound....


So that I could plug my av amp into the wall and all cables are hidden. There's a sub outlet in the other corner.

Along with the 3 Ethernet cables and telephone extension... And the speaker cables which in running up the wall to feed the dining room (so we can have multi room music when entertaining) and the additional ring main sockets I've put in I've been running lots of cables!